To celebrate the forthcoming arrival of Christina Aguilera’s brand new album ‘Bionic’ on 7th June, Christina is calling on all fans to enter her playlist competition. Create a playlist of 10 of Christina’s tracks and share it with as many people as you can via Spotify’s new sharing features. The playlist with the most subscribers wins.

Christina is offering an incredible prize of 2 tickets to see her in concert and an exclusive opportunity to ask her 5 questions! The answers will be posted right here on our blog. Additionally, her new album will be available a week early, on May 31st, here on Spotify for premium subscribers and you’re more than free to add tracks from the new album to your lists.

The competition closes on Monday 14th June and to ensure that your playlist is included please post the link here on the blog so we can track it.

The Ovi store allows you to download all sorts of mobile games, applications, videos, images, themes, and ringing tones to your device and we’re really happy to have our app alongside so many other great programs.

ShareMyPlaylists.com provides us with another in their series of excellent playlist posts. You can check out thousands of playlists at ShareMyPlaylists.com – they’ve got a little something for everyone.

Courtney Love’s Playlist
First up we have we have a very special playlist from a female rock legend, Courtney Love. The lead singer of Hole told us, “I’ve been listening to a lot of female vocalists singing about men lately; A lot of old jazz/blues standards.” This ‘list features classic tracks from some of the greatest, and most troubled, female vocalists of all time such as Etta James, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday and more comtempary artists, PJ Harvey, Mazzy Star and Cat Power. A fantastic insight into the songwriter’s current musical musings.

The Soundtrack to April
One of the tracks of the year so far from Kelis and new audio goodness from LCD Soundsystem are just 2 of the reasons why it’s worth listening to the Soundtrack to April. Comprised of new releases from near and far, this series of playlists is one of our most popular.

Today we’re delighted to introduce Spotify to The Netherlands. The Netherlands will be the seventh country that Spotify is available in and we’re very excited to bring you all a new way to listen to music.

For those of you who are hearing about Spotify for the first time and are curious for more information, have a look around our website where you can read all about us, check out our new social and local music files features and work out which of the products we offer is best for you.

And for those of you who have been dying to use Spotify in The Netherlands then the wait is over.

Also, as part of our launch we’ve got a brand new track recorded by the duo Guus Meeuwis and Marco Borsato. The new track, Schouder aan Schouder, is the first time these close friends have worked together and is available exclusively on Spotify before it’s release..

Over the coming weeks we’ll be bringing you more information about what Spotify is all about and some of the news about what we’ve got going on in The Netherlands, so stay tuned…..

First up is Spotify Unlimited, which offers you round-the-clock, ad-free access to Spotify on your computer. Create playlists, build your own library, share music with friends – and all for only €5 a month.

Also available from today is Spotify Open. Open offers new Spotify users the chance to try out the service without the need for an invite, giving access to millions of tracks for up to 20 hours every month – that’s equivalent to listening to 25 albums or 300 tracks EVERY month!

So if you’ve got friends who haven’t managed to get an invite but have been dying to get on Spotify, let them know about Spotify Open.

We’re really excited to offer more choices for users and existing users who are happy with their current plan won’t be affected by these updates.

To view a full comparison of all the products that we now offer head over to the products overview page.

We have a update of our iPhone app to let you know about – version 0.4.5 is now available in the App store for download. This update brings a few of the new social features that we’ve launched on the desktop to your mobile phone as well.

Some of the updates included are:

The new Inbox to received tracks from friends has been added

The app will now automatically try to find a replacement for any track you can’t play.

Facebook and Twitter sharing use in-app browser rather than opening Safari

Years are shown in artist and album views

Many of you have also been patiently waiting for new versions of our other mobile apps and they are on the way soon, stay tuned!

They’ve been away for a while. Rumors had it that they were quitting but Empire Dogs have never had any plans to go quietly. Now they’re back with a brand new album Happy Go Lucky, which is to be released on May 19th. But Spotify listeners can listen to the whole album from today!

The album is the much anticipated follow up to 2004’s Empire Dogs – Love Attacks!!! The sound has changed a bit but there won’t be any doubt that you’re listening to the same band. Even though they went to India for a few gigs in the summer of 2006. The long process of making the new album has meant that they have had time to set up collaborations with Swedish artists and producers like Fabian Thorsson, Jocke Åhlund (The Teddybears) and Ola Salo (The Ark).

Swedish listeners can also win Spotify Premium accounts and Premium users can also win signed copies of “Happy Go Lucky”. Find out more here!

Band of Horses, the Low Country’s premier rock n’ roll outfit, release their third full length LP, Infinite Arms on May 17th. Starting today Spotify Premium listeners in the Nordics, UK and Spain can listen to the album before its full release next week.

Band of Horses are Ben Bridwell, Creighton Barrett, Ryan Monroe, Tyler Ramsey and Bill Reynolds. Band founding member, Bridwell, himself concedes, “in many ways, this is the first Band of Horses record” as long time touring members Ramsey and Reynolds have only just officially joined the band since touring their last record ‘Cease to Begin’.

Infinite Arms was produced by Band of Horses with additional production from Phil Ek, mixed by Dave Sardy, and recorded over a 16-month period. The album songs project the essence of the different locales across America that became the setting for the recording and songwriting process behind the album. Enjoy!